


so tear apart these giant hearts that beat inside us now

by maviswrites



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: Aftermath, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Insecurity, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Multi, Nightmares, Period Typical Attitudes, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29707599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maviswrites/pseuds/maviswrites
Summary: Joaquin contemplates where he belongs, only to find his place with Manolo and Maria. Together, the three of them handle the grief of their losses and the joy of their love.
Relationships: Joaquín Mondragón/María Posada/Manolo Sánchez
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	so tear apart these giant hearts that beat inside us now

**Author's Note:**

> This piece does acknowledge the period-typical attitudes toward polyamory that would have existed during the movie's setting. However, no polyphobia is shown, merely the characters' attempts to avoid it. I didn't know how to tag properly for that, so I thought I'd mention it here.
> 
> Title is from the song "No Matter Where You Are," from the movie.

The night after Chakal’s defeat, Joaquin is sitting at the cemetery. It’s cool outside, now that the sun’s gone down, and he can only see by the light of the candles still lit for the Day of the Dead. The wedding party has calmed down, though there’s still some drunken shouting in the streets, and it’s late. He should be in bed, asleep, recovering from the day’s battle, but he can’t bring himself to do it. It feels like, if he closes his eyes, it will all be a dream—a nightmare—and Manolo and Maria will still be dead.

He looks up at the statue of his father. The captain. He’s never thought of him as “Father.” Just, “his father, the Captain.” What was the man like as a person? He didn’t need an enchanted medal to be brave, that’s for sure. He did that all on his own.

If anyone ever wanted to see a brave man stripped vulnerable, clean, unsure, they don’t need to look any further. Without the medal to make him a hero, he’s nothing; he knows that. Joaquin sighs, leaving his drink, still full, on top of the stone. It’s not the bread they leave out on the Day of the Dead—the bread still sitting there from this morning, probably going stale—to be sure, but maybe it’s enough. Soldiers always appreciate what they’re allowed. The Captain would understand.

This isn’t where he wants to be, he knows. This isn’t who he wants to be with.

But he can’t have that—all his life has been a reminder of that, since the day he became a town hero. “One day you can marry Maria,” General Posada would say as Joaquin completed his hundredth set of push-ups.

“But Manolo wants to marry Maria, too. And Maria doesn’t want to marry _anyone_!” young Joaquin would say, still unaware of the politics that caused the general to pressure him so much.

“My daughter will not marry a musician! But like it or not, ladies must be wed. And you are just like your father—you will make a fine son-in-law.”

“But what if Manolo doesn’t like me anymore once I marry Maria?”

“Pah! Who needs friends when you have a loving wife to cook and clean and keep your home? Meanwhile, you can go off and chase Chakal’s bandits away from San Angel!”

After that, Joaquin learned not to ask. You can only have one, never both. A friend or a wife.

Now he has neither.

_Well, that’s not quite true,_ a voice in his head says—the one he imagines is his father the captain’s voice. But he’ll never know; he’s never remembered anything of his father beyond the face on the statue before him. The voice continues: _You have two friends again, who happen to be married to each other. They don’t hate you, as you feared they would. And you saved Manolo’s life with the medal. All it cost you was an eye. Well worth the price._

He runs his fingers against the makeshift eyepatch, knows he’s lucky it wasn’t a worse wound. The nuns fussed over him for a while once the dancing ended for the evening, only to conclude that there was no more to be done about it. He’ll never see from that eye again. But yes, it was well worth the price, to keep Manolo alive, to end Maria and Joaquin’s own grief. To keep the worst day of his life from happening all over again.

He leaves the cup on the foundation of the statue—there had never been enough left of his father the captain to bury, so this is what he has. This is all he has, now. No home, no family, no medal, no heroics. Just a statue. Just Manolo and Maria, alive and happy together. That ought to be enough.

It ought to be.

He makes his way through the town, to the home of General Posada, where his guest bed is waiting for him. The house is quiet—the wedding festivities ended some time ago, and now the Sanchezes (he twists his mouth wryly at the newlyweds’ shared name) are back at Manolo’s home. The spirits have returned to the Land of the Remembered, though it took quite a bit of coaxing for the twins to go, and Manolo’s father and great-grandmother are to be buried in the morning. He realizes with a start that Maria and Manolo are alone now in that tiny old house. Manolo, like him, has no family left among the living.

General Posada’s home is elegant and lavish for the poor town of San Angel. The bed is one of the most comfortable he’s ever slept in, but for the last few days all he’s done is toss and turn in it. It wouldn’t help him now, so he keeps walking.

Joaquin ends up at the place he’s been thinking about all day—the bridge. Where he took Maria’s body into his arms and told Manolo, as cruelly as he knew how, that it should have been him to die instead.

There are still candles on the edges of the bridge, long burnt out now, some trampled by Chakal’s men. Nobody bothered to clear them away when they found Manolo’s body and called for Joaquin to come and take him. He’d carried Manolo to the Sanchez home then, to be dressed for the funeral and then taken back to the hill and buried.

All the while Carlos had watched, sobbing the way Joaquin has only ever seen grown men cry: like the grief is swallowing you whole, unexpectedly, unavoidably. Men cry like that on the battlefield. Joaquin cried like that as he held Manolo’s corpse, thinking that Maria was dead too and that he was going to be alone. Knowing that the last words he’d ever said to Maria had been selfish, and his last words to Manolo had been unkind.

He’s carried the bodies of both of the only two people he’s ever been able to love. Now they’re alive again, but it feels like they’re just as far away as ever.

He crosses the bridge, kicking a candle or two off the side carelessly.

He’s sitting with his back against the tree when he hears footsteps—two pairs. He doesn’t open his eye. He knows it’s dawn, that the town is stirring. Maybe it’s General Posada or some of his fans, wondering why he didn’t come back to sleep in his own bed.

“Joaquin, have you been out here all night?”

Maria. He looks up at her. She’s dressed in her simple white nightgown, her hair in its ponytail, and her eyes look just as tired as his feels. She’s barefoot. Manolo is behind her. He’s in a simple white shirt and pants, guitar gone, hair loose. Also barefoot. Joaquin quirks a half-smile without being able to help it—these two will be the death of him, wandering barefoot to a place where they were killed by a snakebite.

But he’s here to protect them this time. So at least there’s that.

“No,” he answers. “I was at the cemetery for a while too. But I just… needed to be here.” He blinks, suddenly realizing that they should be home, relaxing after their wedding. “What’re you two doing out here?”

“Looking for you, of course,” Manolo says. “We went to General Posada’s home first, but you weren’t there… but your horse was still in the stables. So we thought maybe you’d be at the cemetery. You weren’t. So then we came here.”

“Sorry,” he says, shutting his eye again and leaning his head back against the tree. “For your trouble.”

“Don’t be,” Manolo tells him, and Joaquin listens to the sound of them kneeling on either side of him, in the place where they died.

Maria sits at his left, her tiny palm on his knee. Manolo is on his right, a heavy weight against his shoulder. Joaquin quirks his mouth uncomfortably at the realization that he can barely see Maria in the peripheral of his still-working eye. A soldier is never comfortable with the concept of being blind to his surroundings. But he could never be afraid of Maria. (Unless she’s mad. Then it’s best to be afraid.)

“Why did you need to be here?” she asks quietly.

He grimaces. “You both died here,” he says simply. “I carried both your bodies home.”

_I thought I was alone_ , he doesn’t say. Twice. Once with a heartbroken Manolo to hate, and the other with a distant Maria to hate him for pushing her into a marriage she didn’t want. And then that awful period in between, before Maria woke up, where he had neither of them.

He doesn’t have words for that part.

“Joaquin…” Maria doesn’t finish.

“Hey, I’m not ungrateful,” he says quickly, forcing a laugh out to ease the tension. “I’m glad I’ve got you both back. I just… had to take it all in. Why were you looking for me?”

She and Manolo exchange a worried glance over him. “It felt… wrong, without you there,” Maria answers.

Wrong? He lifts an eyebrow curiously. Before Maria came home, he hadn’t been to San Angel in years. It’s not home anymore. In a way, it feels almost wrong to be here, not in a desert with his horse and fellow soldiers. It feels wrong to not have the medal on his chest, to only be able to see out of one eye. In the last few days, he’s become a whole new person.

Manolo shifts a little until their hands brush in the grass. He leaves his hand there and Joaquin—well, he doesn’t startle, but he flexes his fingers out of surprise. Manolo takes it as an invitation to wrap their fingers together and rubs a thumb across Joaquin’s ring finger.

“We’ve always been the three of us,” Manolo offers.

Joaquin nods in agreement. The three infamous _amigos_ , setting pigs free and getting sucked into gods’ bets. A staple of San Angel, he can’t deny that.

“And just the two of us,” Maria says. She gestures to Manolo—Joaquin turns his whole head to see her better—and husband and wife hold hands across his lap. “It feels good, but.”

“But?” he echoes, staring down at the joined hands in his lap. Manolo squeezes his fingers with the hand still holding Joaquin’s.

“But three is always best,” Manolo says throatily, in that _guitarrista_ voice that always drove the girls wild. He places his hand against the side of Joaquin’s jaw, pulling him closer.

Joaquin is only dimly aware of the sun rising and shining upon the town, making it sparkle like diamonds. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. It’s like a dream. It’s the center of the universe.

Manolo leans in and kisses him.

It tastes better than anything. Better than blood on his lip in a fight he’d just won, better than the chocolate he’d gotten once from the nuns in the orphanage, better than wine, better than victory. Actually, it tastes like Manolo and Maria’s wedding feast, hastily thrown-together bread and beer. The best he’s ever tasted.

He presses back, just slightly, then feels Maria’s hand on the back of his neck. It makes it feel like she’s a part of the kiss, too. It’s chaste, short and sweet. Manolo catches Joaquin’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, pulling away just slightly. “Why did we wait so long?” he laughs softly, eyes half-closed with sleep and joy.

Joaquin agrees with a silent nod and pushes forward to kiss him again. This kiss is faster, with tongue and teeth, years of pent up longing disguised behind friendly competition over Maria. Manolo makes a longing, cutoff sound behind the kiss, and Joaquin presses in further.

Unwilling to be forgotten, Maria tears them away after a few moments, then gives Manolo a chiding look. “You can’t keep him all to yourself,” she huffs, grinning to show she’s only joking.

Manolo rolls his eyes fondly then inclines his head slightly. “Go on, then,” he teases.

She sniffs imperiously at her husband, then turns Joaquin’s head from where he’s still staring slack-jawed at Manolo, until he’s facing her. “My turn,” singsongy and cheerful, then a press of her lips to his. Her hands go to his chest, rubbing right where the medal used to rest, and he finds he doesn’t miss its absence as much in that moment.

Slowly, slowly, he brings one hand up to cup her cheek. This feels more tentative than with Manolo, possibly due to her being away for so long. She’s been gone for years, and in the three days she’s been back, he’s made a fool of himself more often than not.

He breaks the kiss, breathing heavily, realizing immediately that Manolo is resting his weight against his back, watching. “W-why?” he asks. “Why me?”

“You’re Joaquin,” Manolo supplies, rather unhelpfully.

Joaquin raises an eyebrow to convey his confusion.

“He means,” Maria laughs, “that there was never going to be anyone else. We didn’t feel… complete, without you.”

He runs a hand through her hair, wishing. “So, what, you don’t mind that I’m…?” he gestures to himself. “I mean, I can’t really fight anymore—I mean, I could, but I don’t know if I want to—and I, I can only see out of one eye, and I know I’m impulsive and distracting and immature and self-centered—”

Maria touches his face, tracing the outline of the eyepatch with a fingernail. She leaves her hand to rest against it and he winces at the light pressure until she adjusts it. “No one cares about any of that,” she says. “You’re still the same person, Joaquin. We love you, not the greatest soldier in Mexico.”

“Besides,” Manolo interrupts, rubbing Joaquin’s back and whispering in his ear. “We’ve all got faults. I can be impulsive too, and rude and selfish. And Maria… um…” He pauses, searching to find a fault of hers, then brightens. “Maria snores!”

She shrieks with pealing laughter. “I do not!”

“And her bedhead is awful,” Manolo confides to him, and Joaquin snickers.

Maria rolls her eyes. “I have real flaws, too. I have a temper and I’m stubborn, and I don’t always think things through. Besides,” she adds self-righteously, “Manolo has the very worst bedhead of all.”

“I do not!”

“You do, too,” she retorts.

Joaquin is busy shaking with laughter, but as he stops, he realizes what all of this is and what it would mean. “So, what, two become three?” he quips. “Won’t the town find that… odd?”

The two exchange glances. “We were… actually thinking about moving away,” Manolo says. “It’s just…”

“Neither of us have much reason to stay,” Maria continues. “Papá doesn’t need me, and Manolo…”

Manolo grimaces and his shoulders drop.

Joaquin doesn’t think, just finds Manolo’s hand and squeezes it tightly in his own, until Manolo gives him a tiny smile. “Can’t take the pressures of being the hero of San Angel, huh?” he jokes. “Man, why do you think I left for so long? It’s intense.”

Maria grins. “We were hoping you might come with us. One of the sisters back in Spain gave me the papers to her old family estate here in Mexico and told me I was welcome to it. It’s abandoned now, but it could be rebuilt. It isn’t much, just a small farm and a tiny house, but…”

“No more war, no more bullfighting,” Manolo says, then trails off.

“No more shadows,” Joaquin finishes for him, and Manolo smiles sadly at him.

They sit there for a moment, thinking. “This town is our whole lives,” Manolo says. He sounds like he’s thinking out loud more than he’s actually speaking to them. “There are beautiful moments here. But there are painful ones, too. I want to go make beautiful memories somewhere the three of us can live, together, without the darkness chasing us.”

Joaquin’s face cracks into a smile without his permission at the thought of it. “So, what, I’ll put down my sword and pick up a hoe? Plant tomatoes and squash, be a farmer? Maria will be the town schoolteacher with her education, and in the evenings, Manolo will sing us to sleep?”

They nod. “To be fair,” Manolo defends, “I’ll probably do some gardening as well. I can do more than sing and fight bulls, you know?”

Joaquin laughs incredulously. “When did you two have time to plan this? Immediately after the wedding?”

“During, if you can believe it,” Maria snickers. “Manolo was put out that he couldn’t dance with you because it wouldn’t ‘look’ right. And that just started the conversation.”

“We want to always be truthful to each other,” Manolo adds. “So you’d have to promise that, too, and we’ll promise it to you. No lies, no secrets. No more hiding behind shadows.”

There’s a difference between fate and destiny, he thinks. Destiny is the grand plan: here’s what you’ll do with your life, if you’ll have meaning, if you’ll be remembered. Fate is the little things: where you spend your life, and who you spend it with, and why.

Destiny is fighting off Chakal and losing an eye as the price of becoming a true hero. Fate is getting to do it in San Angel or wherever else, at Manolo and Maria’s sides.

He likes being by their sides. “Okay,” he takes a deep breath. “No more shadows. Where is this estate?”

They both break into huge smiles.

In the end, the service is simple. “Exactly what they would have wanted,” Maria says to Manolo when they enter the doorway of the church. He turns up a corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, and doesn’t say anything.

Joaquin follows behind, wishing that he owned something a little more solemn, a little less flashy than his uniforms. He presses a hand to Manolo’s shoulder and gently steers him forward, though Maria hangs back to greet her father. “Come on,” he says.

Manolo goes, wordless, until they end up at the twin coffins. They’re closed, darkly stained wood, imposing as death. “Say what you need to say,” Joaquin tells him, squeezing his shoulder a little tighter. “Maria and I’ll wait for you.”

He nods almost imperceptibly and kneels.

Everyone gives Manolo a wide berth, enough for him to speak without being heard. Joaquin returns to Maria by the stained-glass windows, who watches with her lips pressed together thinly to hold back tears. “I’ve never felt death before,” she whispers so only he can hear. “Mama died when I was born, but it’s always been more of an absence than a pain to me. And none of the Sisters ever passed while I was there. The only death I’ve ever known was his, and that was, thankfully, temporary. What can I even say to him?”

She turns her wet eyes up to him. “What can I even begin to say?”

Joaquin clasps her hand with his. He’s careful to look around, make sure no one sees and gets the right idea, but no one seems to notice. People are talking among themselves—the Sanchezes are a beloved family, and the townsfolk are bound to reminisce.

“Manolo doesn’t often need words,” he says. It’s something she already knows, she just needs reminding. “Just stay with him, and hold his hand, and he’ll give you what you need to help him. Do you remember when his mother died?”

She shakes her head. “I… we were so young…” she trails off.

“Don’t worry. I remember. Manolo would go to visit her grave nearly every day. If he stayed out too late, his papá would send me out to get him. Just make sure he doesn’t catch frostbite.” He almost winks, but the mood is too solemn.

Maria looks doubtful.

“I promise, Manolo’s never needed much. Sing with him, and make sure he drinks and eats something every once in a while, and listen if he needs to talk. He can get through this if he has you.”

“If he has us,” she corrects, intertwining his fingers with his. “You’ll do all those things with me, won’t you?”

He hesitates. They agreed not to leave town for a few weeks, until Manolo felt comfortable leaving his father and great-grandmother. “And what if it happens at night, while I’m away? I don’t—”

“Stay with us,” she pleads quietly. “It won’t seem odd. You’re our friend and you don’t want to impose on my papá any longer. Or something. No one will overthink it.”

He thinks about it and smiles. “Then yes, I’ll do all those things with you. Anything for Manny.”

The first night isn’t the hardest.

They’re all exhausted from the long funeral, with Joaquin only barely taking the time to politely take his leave from Señor Posada and move his (very few) belongings to Manolo and Maria’s house. He enters it, practically his second home from childhood, and sees little has changed. Manolo’s great-grandmother’s rocking chair still stands in the corner. A bullwhip still lies discarded on the table. But now, a guitar sits proudly by the couch.

Manolo and Maria are already getting ready for bed, both tired. Between the fight with Chakal, the wedding, and the funeral, it’s no wonder. For Manolo, there’s also the added stress of having fought his way back to life. He falls asleep nearly as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Joaquin stands at the doorway with Maria. “He didn’t want the master bedroom…?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

“It still has his father’s things in it,” she says, gazing down at Manolo’s sleeping form. “I suggested it, and you should have seen the look he gave me. Not even angry. Just sad.”

“Still, I don’t think we’ll all fit in his bed,” he chuckles. “Hang on, I’ll grab a blanket for the floor.”

“Joaquin—” she protests.

“Hey, I’ve slept on worse than a nice wooden floor with some good, warm blankets,” he shrugs. “I’m good. Promise.”

She acquiesces with a smile, climbing into bed and curving herself around Manolo’s back. “If you insist.”

They sleep hard, and Joaquin wakes up in the morning to find Maria’s hand dangling over the edge of the bed, next to where he’s lying. He wraps his fingers in hers with a smile before getting up for the day.

It’s the second night that’s rough, and all the nights after that. Manolo passes through the days in a haze, barely touching his guitar, looking struck every time he notices the empty rocking chair. They all wander throughout the house, grateful to get to sleep at night, though none of them sleep as well as they should. Manolo least of all, though he doesn’t confide in Maria or Joaquin the way they wish he would. Not about the loss of his family, or his experiences in the Land of the Dead, or fighting Chakal. Instead, they’ll wake to find him pacing the floor, or staring up at the ceiling, avoiding the sleep he desperately needs.

As the time passes, they try to prepare for their new life. Maria sends ahead to the town they’ll be moving to in order to secure a position as a schoolteacher, and luckily one is open. Joaquin spends some time with the nuns, who grow their own food, and tries to pick up some farming and gardening techniques from them—he knows he must have helped garden as a child for his chores in the orphanage, but the memories have faded and the knowledge is lost to him, so he has to learn it again. Manolo begins to pack up the house, though he doesn’t intend to sell it just yet. Neither of them pushes him to.

One night, a few weeks in, Joaquin wakes to an unfamiliar sound. He rolls over toward the bed, peering up curiously to see Maria bent over Manolo, who’s still lying down. “I think he’s having a nightmare,” she reports, her brow furrowed with concern.

He stands and sits at the edge of the bed, where Manolo tosses and turns. “Is he sick?” he asks worriedly. “Any fever?”

“I don’t think so. Just a bad dream. I can’t get him to wake up, though.”

“This is the first time it’s happened, right?” he palms Manolo’s forehead. Cool.

“I think so.”

Manolo gradually becomes more active, rolling around until Joaquin pins his wrists to the bed so he doesn’t accidentally hit someone. He makes sounds as though he wants to scream or moan, but doesn’t.

It’s kind of heartbreaking.

Eventually, just as Maria is starting to bite through her lip from nerves, and Joaquin thinks about getting some cold water to splash him awake, Manolo sits up abruptly. His look is hollow, and he stares at them as though they should have all the answers to a question that he’s afraid to ask.

“Oh, Manolo,” Maria says, her voice both soft and sad, and she goes to sit by him. Joaquin follows suit and sits on his other side, ignoring the part where he’s nearly falling off the bed because it really wasn’t made for three people.

Manolo looks up at them for a moment, eyes wide and lost. He looks back down at his hands in his lap, squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t—I didn’t want to think about it,” his voice breaks. “I thought—”

Maria runs her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay. We’re here.”

He opens his eyes again, and this time they’re full of tears. “I’m sorry,” he cries, and Joaquin gathers him up in his arms, Manolo’s face buried in his shoulder.

“Don’t be sorry,” Joaquin whispers as Maria shushes him and rubs his back. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay. We’re here, breathe, you’re okay.”

Manolo sobs so hard it’s a wonder he can still breathe, and Joaquin holds him tighter as if he can squeeze the grief away, and they stay still for several endless, endless moments. It feels like days, listening to their beloved suffering.

“Manolo,” Maria tells him as his breathing begins to quiet, cupping the back of his head tenderly, “your father and great-grandmother love you. Your whole family loves you, and you will see them again one day.”

“And,” Joaquin continues, “until then, you need to know that you’re our family too. You’ve always been our family.”

Maria nods, starting to cry too. “You helped a girl without a mother, even when she was improper. Because of you I wasn’t alone.”

“And because of you,” Joaquin says, “I didn’t grow up with just the nuns. I had a friend. Not just my father’s shadow. Because of you I wasn’t alone.”

Manolo’s been quiet, but now he stirs. He crumples Joaquin’s shirt in one fist, and with his other, he takes Maria’s hand. He lifts his head up from Joaquin’s chest, hair matted to one side from sleep, eyes swollen and skin blotchy. “I know, I know,” he laughs out a shaky breath, already trying to lighten the mood, though they’re determined not to let him just yet. “With you two, I’m not alone.”

“You never will be,” Maria swears. “I need you to believe that.”

“I just…” his voice is tiny, and they wait patiently until he coaxes it back to life. “I didn’t really think about all of it that day, because we had to save San Angel and I had to get my life back. And then I looked around that night and… Papá wasn’t there. And he was never going to be there again. And neither was anybody else in my family, just as soon as I’d gotten to meet them. It feels emptier now. The house is too quiet. Even with you two here.

“I still think I can hear my grandmother in her rocking chair, knitting a blanket that will never be finished. Or Papá, making dinner and always, always burning it. But then I remember.” He sighs. “And I feel like leaving is just going to be running away from my memories.”

Joaquin frowns. “Hey,” he waits until Manolo looks at him. “No one ever said we weren’t coming back. You aren’t running away. We’re all building a life together, right?”

“Right,” Maria says. “Manolo, you shouldn’t feel bad for living your life. We’re going to get through all of it, together. That means we help you, and you help us, and we build our own traditions, too. But we can always come back if that’s what feels right, and of course for visits.”

Manolo sniffs and rubs a fist under his eyes to get rid of the tear tracks. “Thanks, _mis amores_.” He gives a small smile. “I’m sorry I’ve been in such a daze lately. I’ve just been… trying to wrap my head around everything, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Maria soothes. “Why don’t you try going back to sleep? Maybe you’re done dreaming for the night.”

“Wake me up if I’m not?” in a small voice.

“Promise,” Joaquin says. And even though they all shouldn’t fit on this tiny bed, Manolo won’t leave him leave, and so they somehow make it work, with Manolo squashed into Joaquin’s chest, and Maria half-lying on top of them, and even Chewy whining to be lifted up to sleep at Maria’s feet.

As things go, it’s the most uncomfortable, tight, peaceful night they’ve had. Maria snores, Manolo rolls over every five minutes, and Joaquin kicks. They’re squished and exhausted and blessedly, wonderfully quiet.

It’s perfect.

The farm is… something, when they arrive. It’s small and plain and in disrepair, but nice. Maria makes a list upon seeing it of the things they need to do just for the outside: repaint, weed out the garden, start planting the farmland as soon as it gets warm enough, shingle the roof, and so on.

But it’s nice. Three bedrooms, a kitchen with a stove, an alcove with a window seat where Manolo can play guitar and Maria can sing and Joaquin can clap along.

And it’s theirs, which is most important.

Move-in day is blissfully easy and fun, something Joaquin’s come to love over the course of their relationship. The two of them make everything feel… easier. He watches from behind as they open the front door of their home for the first time.

Maria carries Chewy in her arms as Manolo walks up to the threshold with his guitar in hand. With a whooping laugh, he sets the guitar down and sweeps her up in a bridal carry. “ _Manolo_ ,” she gaspingly laughs, caught by surprise, “Manolo, put me down this minute—”

“I believe,” Manolo says with a grin, “that I’m supposed to carry you over this threshold, Mrs. Sanchez.”

Neither of them is expecting Joaquin, who is standing behind them with a few suitcases in hand, to drop their luggage and abruptly grab Manolo. Manolo belly laughs and Maria shrieks a little at being so high in the air, with Joaquin now carrying them both. She still clutches Chewy, who seems gracefully calm for once, in her arms.

What a picture they make.

“And _I_ believe,” Joaquin says with a rumbling laugh, “that I’m supposed to get you both in this house, safe and sound.”

With that, he crosses through into the house, all of them giggling and savoring their joy.

The first night in their house ( _their house_ , he likes the sound of that), they mostly unpack and make arrangements for the next few days. Maria doesn’t start teaching for another week or so. Similarly, Joaquin has written ahead to the commandant of the town and offered his services as a trainer for new military recruits. Manolo is looking to find a job, but for now he’ll do home repairs, as well as the planting once it gets warm enough, so they’ll have a crop come harvesttime.

“What do you think you want to do?” Maria asks that night, her foot dangling off the bed and swinging back and forth playfully as she brushes her hair.

This bed is small, too, just large enough for her, but Joaquin and Manolo are already hard at work at building one that will easily be big enough for all three of them.

(“I still don’t see why the pig gets the bed, too, while the men have to sleep on the floor,” Joaquin grumbles half-heartedly. No one listens to him. Chewy gloats down at him from the foot of the bed.)

“I don’t know,” Manolo sighs. He strums a guitar from the floor, where his pallet rests besides Joaquin’s. “I really don’t have many skills besides bullfighting and singing. I can cook and take care of the house, but I doubt that would be very fulfilling all of the time.”

“And yet that’s exactly what most women are expected to do,” Maria says primly.

Manolo leans up to kiss her. “Yes, but we know that you’re all capable of so much more than that. That’s why you’re our breadwinner, right?” he deflects with a charming grin.

Maria accepts the kiss with a suspicious lift of her eyebrow, but gives in. “You bet I am.”

“Hey, I’ll be making some money as a trainer,” Joaquin protests. “C’mon, don’t erase my contribution here.”

“We could never,” Manolo laughs, turning to kiss him too. One of his hands strokes its way down Joaquin’s chest. “Ready for bed?”

Joaquin smiles, kissing back. A new set of hands appears, rubbing his back, and he pulls away to find Maria kneeling next to them, a mischievous grin on her face. “What are you doing down here?” he asks, chuckling at her.

“Well, I couldn’t let you two have _all_ the fun,” she says, leaning over him and kissing Manolo deeply. Manolo sighs into the kiss, cupping a hand to her cheek.

Joaquin watches fondly, running his fingers through Maria’s long hair, let down for bed. She and Manolo look so… content, and domestic, and in love. And he’s a part of that. He’s _with them_ , and that’s the way things are. Sure, to the townsfolk Maria and Manolo will be the married couple and he will be their beloved cousin, back from the wars. But other people don’t have to know the truth, at least not in his mind.

What matters is that he knows it. He knows how Maria _does_ in fact snore terribly, and Manolo hums in his sleep when he’s having a good dream, and the three of them are made to share a life together. They always have been, ever since they were children. Before the gods got involved or the bandits came to town, the three of them were fated in the best way possible, and he knows nothing could change that. Not death, not life.

Chewy still looks smugly down at him from the bed, which the pig is now occupying alone. But as Joaquin brushes Maria’s hair aside and presses a featherlight kiss to the back of her neck, listening as she and Manolo giggle into their kiss, he finds that he doesn’t even care.

He’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please consider leaving a comment! :)


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